Background
Today's businesses, large and small, depend on their email systems for a critical majority of their communication needs. Email has developed from a rudimentary, inaccessible technology used only by the tech-savvy to its current role as a rapid, reliable communications tool for just about everyone. Along the way, as user needs and data storehouse have evolved - remember when 1 Mb of storehouse was a big deal? - the use of email systems has increased well beyond their traditional scope of sending and receiving short messages. Today's email systems supply calendaring, group collaboration, task management, workflow and, ever-increasingly, file and data storage. Users now store many years worth of email and attachments, and refer back to them on a frequent basis for prominent historical information.
Microsoft Security Essentials
This addition document retention, along with the ever-increasing size of attachments, has caused email systems to dramatically growth in size and therefore demand higher technical capacity and management. Meanwhile, the email content itself has increased in value - often being sensitive, ownership or even mission-critical in nature. It is critical that today's company protects its email speculation and connected systems with document holding and archiving policies. An productive course will balance ideas needs for safety & stability with user needs that include rapid access.
Over the years of working with our clients, Seitel Systems has developed a set of best practices for dealing with these involved needs. Outlined below are our recommendations for holding and archiving under Microsoft's change Server.
Group course Templates
Regardless of whether Outlook Auto Archive is used to conduct mailboxes, the Outlook Group course Template should be used to centrally control settings (including whether or not archiving is allowed). Configuration facts is available below.
Outlook 2007: Outlk12.adm Outlook 2003: Outlk11.adm
Exchange 2000 Environments change 2000 is petite in the amount of available storehouse to 16 Gb (17 Gb for short term repairs). As a result, Ssl recommends that these organizations implement mailbox supervision policies as follows:
1. Mailbox Size Limits: to 500 Mb or smaller depending on the uncut size of the organization. Smaller organizations can have larger mailbox limits. This should be managed straight through mailbox quotas enforced by change Server. As users arrival their assigned quota they'll receive warning messages to that effect. Once they reach the quota they'll be restricted from sending and receiving emails.
2. Outlook Email Auto Archive should be configured for all users to run with the following settings:
Turn On Auto Archive: Yes
Run AutoArchive every days: 7
Prompt before AutoArchive runs: No
Delete Expired Items: No
Archive or delete old items: No
(note: this is a setting relevant to email holding policies and expiration dates, not the deleted items folder)
Show archive briefcase in briefcase list: Yes
Clean out items older than: Never
Permanently delete old items: No
(note: this is a setting relevant to email holding policies and expiration dates, not the deleted items folder)
3. Archive folders should be stored in the following locations:
· Workstation users should archive to a pst file located on the network. This runs the risk of file corruption as Msft recommends against using a network share for email auto archiving but alternative solutions (such as archiving locally) entail greater risk of data loss due to disk or backup issues.Search the Microsoft retain site for kb/297019 to find the supporting article.
· Laptop users should archive to a pst file located on their local hard drive. A hand-operated process will be required to copy these psts to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure that they are backed up. Ssl recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.
· A hand-operated process will be required for all users to ensure that personel pst files do not exceed 2 Gb in size. The frequency of this process will depend on the rate of email sending & receiving, but should be checked on at least an yearly basis. Ssl recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.
Exchange 2003 Environments change 2003 is petite in the amount of available storehouse to 75 Gb. This is likely more storehouse space than will be consumed by the mean small business, but for those businesses that arrival this limit Ssl recommends one of the following solutions:
· Upgrade to change Server 2007 with its near-unlimited storehouse space. This is the likely solution for businesses on older hardware or simply wanting to take benefit of the features of 2007.
· Add in a second mailbox store on the existing change Server and migrate mailboxes to balance the storehouse load. This solution assumes available disk space and remaining useful life of the server hardware.
Due to the large available storehouse space and the possible complexities of archive files Ssl does not recommend implementing mailbox size limits or email auto-archiving policies except for laptop (mobile) users. thrifty user supervision of their mailboxes is encouraged straight through deletion of non-essential emails especially those with large attachments that do not need to be archived. The Outlook Group course Template should be used to preclude users from enabling Auto Archive on their mailbox.
Mobile users with large mailboxes will touch critical execution degradation when operating surface of the office Lan. Cached change mode or offline storehouse files are not recommended as they are both petite to 2 Gb file sizes, plus their required synchronization time can be painful when done over a Wan relationship (broadband or otherwise). For mobile users Ssl recommends the following:
1. Outlook should be configured to use Rpc over Https to allow regain access to the change Server whenever the laptop is connected to the internet
2. To keep execution at an approved level it is recommended that mobile users need to keep their mailboxes below 500 Mb in size. This could be managed straight through mailbox quotas enforced by change Server.
3. Auto Archive should be enabled for mobile users to run quietly every 7 days and archive facts to a pst file located on their local hard drive. A hand-operated process will be required to copy these psts to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure that they are backed up. Ssl recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.
4. A hand-operated process will be required for mobile users to ensure that personel pst files do not exceed 2 Gb in size. The frequency of this process will depend on the rate of email sending & receiving, but should be checked on at least an yearly basis. Ssl recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.
Exchange 2007 Environments change 2007 offers near unlimited storehouse petite only by the available hard drive space. As a result, Ssl does not recommend implementing mailbox size limits or email auto-archiving policies except for laptop (mobile) users. thrifty user supervision of their mailboxes is encouraged straight through deletion of non-essential emails especially those with large attachments that do not need to be archived. The Outlook Group course Template should be used to preclude users from enabling Auto Archive on their mailbox.
Mobile users with large mailboxes will touch critical execution degradation when operating surface of the office Lan. Cached change mode or offline storehouse files are not recommended as they are both petite to 2 Gb file sizes, plus their required synchronization time can be painful when done over a Wan relationship (broadband or otherwise). For mobile users Ssl recommends the following:
1. Outlook should be configured to use Rpc over Https to allow regain access to the change Server whenever the laptop is connected to the internet
2. To keep execution at an approved level it is recommended that mobile users need to keep their mailboxes below 500 Mb in size. This could be managed straight through mailbox quotas enforced by change Server.
3. Auto Archive should be enabled for mobile users to run quietly every 7 days and archive facts to a pst file located on their local hard drive. A hand-operated process will be required to copy these psts to the network on a regular basis (minimum weekly) to ensure that they are backed up. Ssl recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.
4. A hand-operated process will be required for mobile users to ensure that personel pst files do not exceed 2 Gb in size. The frequency of this process will depend on the rate of email sending & receiving, but should be checked on at least an yearly basis. Ssl recommends placing a recurring appointment on the user's calendar.
Links:
Configuration facts for holding settings is available at: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303413.aspx (Click on "configure holding settings).
The Outlook executive template is located in the Office resource Kit which can be downloaded from: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/desktop/default.aspx. distinct versions are available via the Home->Versions link.
Email Archiving and Mailbox Size - Best convention Recommendations Under Microsoft's exchange Server
Great ideas and information..
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